Help Me Lose My Mind: Flirting With Depravity At The Pemberton Music Festival

Photos by Brian Hockenstein

The journey to the dark side is fraught with peril but if done right can lead to the best moments of your life.

It must have been sometime in the middle of the Saturday night Girl Talk dance party that it hit me - although it's easy to say "oh yeah, that kind of shit is not really my thing" and avoid the whole thing completely, if you free yourself to being open to the experience there is probably no better way to enter a complete state of flow for such a sustained period of time. Surrounded by thousands of like-minded people and, more importantly, good friends old and new, there's just no escaping it - this is what life is all about. I've honestly never seen so many people smiling for so goddamn long, there's just no way around it.

After a six-year hiatus, the Pemberton Music Festival was resurrected 30-minutes north of Whistler, BC - by a new production company who actually seemed to genuinely give a shit about the host town, something clearly lacking in the festivals first itineration - and 25,000 people streamed into what has to be the most spectacular location for such a mass gathering. I may be a bit biased but the site of the PMF seemed so perfectly suited to the task, surrounded by towering peak and open skies as big as most partiers pupils, I just can't imagine it getting any better. Already being hailed as "The Coachella of Canada", the Pemberton Music Festival is well on it's way to becoming one of the premiere music events worldwide. Bumps will inevitably be encountered along the way but the overall sense of the weekend was that the $18 Million pumped into the festival by Huka Entertainment was money well spent and the organizers will surely be welcomed back with open arms for years to come.

With great power comes great responsibility and after picking up our media passes my partner in crime Dr Jones and I took a deep breath and dropped in - not so dissimilar to the leap of faith when you press your front foot down onto your skate and take the plunge down a steep new tranny. Walking up to the accreditation tent, hearts beating as if we were getting away with something,  we knew we were blessed to be given this opportunity and were determined to make the most of it. Hand in hand with a motley crew of Whistler locals who were just as determined as us to have the most fucking awesome weekend possible and dubbed themselves "Camp Stay Together For The Kids", three days were spent in a state of constant bliss - dancing from morning till, well, morning, cruising the festival grounds with a constant grin on our faces just at the thought of what sneaky little adventure we'd get up to next.
 

Sex, drugs and rock & roll is an oft quoted phrase that can be easy to roll your eyes at, but when you fully commit and truly send it, the truth unravels itself at your feet. With full pockets and loaded backpacks the weekend was ours, and we did not let anything stand in our way. Armed with Media wristbands, even more doors were seemingly swung wide open for us at even turn. The call of "we left some camera equipment in the car" was answered with the most debaucherous golf-cart ride imaginable back to the parking area where the rest of our weekend's allotment of beer lay waiting. The good doctor, myself and our bubble-spewing dinosaur armed partner in crime for the day couldn't stop giggling our faces off if our lives had depended on it. With a handful of mushrooms jammed into the drivers hand as a small token of our appreciation, being dropped off inside the festival grounds with a fully-loaded shopping bag of beer at the start of the Snoop show was I think, for me, the moment when it became clear that things were going just about as well as anyone should have the balls to expect. With dino-girl clearing the path with her gorgeous smile and a box of fresh blueberries, we quickly found ourselves right back in the thick of it and it was obvious we had no choice but to dance our faces off, along with the tens of thousands of other like-minded festival goers. Dance tents, private parties and everything in between were visited until dawn. If I told you the details I just might have to kill you.
 

It should have been clear when Dr Jones donned his cape that first morning that we were in for a wild ride but a better party-partner I could not have chosen. Not a moment was wasted from the minute we walked into the festival grounds on Friday afternoon until our limp bodies were dragged back to the car Monday morning. No opportunity went unanswered. No babe was not greated by a smile. Oh, the babes and their smiles. It felt somehow as if every beautiful girl alive had all collectively decided to converge on this one spot in the universe. And unlike out in "the real world", where people's daily stresses seem too often to get the best of them, here inside the festival grounds, a smile never went unreturned. One of the most lasting impressions of the weekend for me was just how positive everyone was being. From 20-year old frat boy types to 30-year locals who've seen it all, it seemed like everyone was in the perfect frame of mind.
 

Waking up on Day Three, all thoughts of trying to leave that night quickly went out the window with a tab of acid from a beautiful girl and a hefty caesar. Perhaps not the best way to wake up when you have to get to work yet somehow the consummate way of getting right back into the flow of a festival weekend. A gospel show to get things going followed by a  reggae show from Rebellution that got the crowd moving and every nerve ending in my body firing in the best of ways possible, our final day was clearly off to a good start. And things only got better from there. Not a soul on the grounds was not determined to make the most of these last few precious hours of bliss, everyone knowing that the next sunrise would mean a return to the drudgery of daily life. When Outcast played their last song six hours later and brought the festival to a close, there was nothing left to do but lay down on the grass and let the wave of euphoria created by the sheer energy of the weekend wash over my mind and soul, taking any worries or stresses that may have been concealing themselves somewhere inside of me with it.

We had set out with no expectations yet a clear sense that something wonderful was about to happen and that is exactly what happened. Although the long-term effects of the weekend are still yet to be seen, my soul feels like it was given a well-deserved lift and my mind is as clear as it's ever been. An altogether too rare feeling in this modern society we live in, I've once again been reminded not only how lucky I am to live the gifted life I do but just how important it is to appreciate that life and make fucking sure I do everything in my power to never give up on my dreams of happiness and living a truly mindful existence